Here's how they did, according to Arwen Myers, the music assistant at Trinity Cathedral.

"It took seven and a half hours of actual singing (after subtracting breaks)," she writes. "The first hymn was sung at 8 a.m. and the last around 6:30 p.m. We had about 30 choir members – lots of illness going around here, unfortunately – and anywhere from 3 to about 20 outsiders with us at any given time. It fluctuated quite a bit throughout the day. We had 17 premium hymns [meaning people paid extra], which we sang multiple verses of (with descants, if available) and 5 hymns were sung in full during the 10 a.m. service. We did one verse each of the other 698 hymns.

"Michael and our organ scholar Christoper Keady split the playing duties. The hymns were performed chronologically, other than the 'premium' hymns, which were all sung in a designated hour in the middle of the day, and the hymns we sang in the 10 a.m. service. When we got to those hymns we had already sung in the service or premium hymn hour in the regular hours of the Hymnathon, a bell was rung to signal that that hymn should be skipped.

"We also had jars for parishioners and others to vote for their favorite hymns, and the jars alone raised almost $900. The top five were:St. Patrick’s Breastplate (370) $248For the fruit of all creation (424) $100Amazing grace (671) $58Be thou my vision (488) $51Crown him with many crowns (494) $43

"We’ll be singing the winner, St. Patrick’s Breastplate, in the 10:00 a.m. service this week. We also had cookies for sale, which were made by our choir members, and all of those were sold. Anecdotally, I believe that a man came in at one point and bought 20 cookie bags to hand out to the homeless he passed on the street.

"The amount we raised is a little tricky to pin down at this point...Choir members’ pledges are still coming in, and it’s hard to keep track of how much more we are expecting. My best estimate at this point is around $12,000 that I’m relatively sure about although it may end up being rather more or a bit less. We raised $2,500 at the actual event from the hymn voting jars and donations, and the rest is money raised from pledges and general donations – some of which have come in and some of which have not."